Photo Illustration Folio

Major Project – Folio

Technology 4

Photographic Illustrations

Description:

Produce a series of digital photographic illustrations demonstrating a broad range of high-level image manipulation and illustrative techniques. Create a series of music related poster styled image using photographic and illustrative compositing and blending techniques. Images to be sourced form existing personal stock of photographs and ongoing photography.

Output:

Four to six A3 sized images as digital submissions and printed and mounted.

Samples:

The samples shown are ideas of the types of finished products I hope to achieve.

See attachment.

Costing:

Printing approximately $45-70. Mounting materials $25.

Time-line:

Week 6 – proposal submitted.

Week 6 – collecting images to be considered posters.

Week 7 ­ proposal approval.

Week 7 - 13 –.work on images

Week 11 – group review session/discussion

Week 13 - 14– Final printing and mounting of this of folio.

Week 14 – group review session/discussion

 Below are the final four selected for the Illustrative portfolio. All of the images had different treatments while still trying to maintain a gritty active feeling. Each of the images can be used for band promotional posters.

   

Original image before deep etch and treatment

 

Illustration before and after lighting blending added with final on the right 

Light streaks added to reflect colours of original lighting.

Original Image

Original Image 

Final Fragmented photo using splatter

Steam Punk Fragmenting not as appropriate as splatter. 

Fragmenting using brushes - preferred splatter 

Original photo 

Works well but not fitting in with the remainder of the set so not used. 

Original 

Final Blur and masked

 

Minor Illustration Project

My four minor project photographs and basically how I created them. The fog and rain are effects added to my existing photos. Push-Pull and Tony are realistic blending of two or more images.

Fog – Above your image create a new layer and fill it with white using the paint bucket. Set Opacity to 90-95%. Create a Mask by Select > Load Selection to select the layer content, then Layer > Layer Mask >Reveal All to create a mask for all layers. Remove the selection with Ctrl+D. Select the Gradient tool and fill layer with linear black and white gradient (light on bottom to dark on top). [In some circumstances you can use a soft brush with low opacity and the Eraser Tool to remove some of the fog in areas.] Fog needs to be irregular. Set colour to black foreground and white background. Create a new layer and apply Filter > Render > Clouds. Change layer mode to Screen and reduce opacity to about 40%.

Rain – Added new layer and filled with 50% tray. Then Filter > Render > Fibers. Adjust variance and strength click Randomize until get a balanced look. Double click layer and in Advanced Blending drag the This Layer black slider to the amount of rain desired. Hold Opt key to drag one side of slider to soften transition. Create new layer above rain. Shift-click rain layer to select it with the blank layer and then merge the two layers Cmd+E. Change Blend to Soft Light. Can also add small Gaussian blur wit slight vertical Motion blur and lower opacity of rain layer.

Push-Pull – Original photos of the two cavies were on a green mats being show at a guinea pig show. This left a strong green tinge on the bottom edge of the cavies hair when they were extracted from the background. Using the rectangle marque tool I selected a small portion of the carpet and setting feather to 0 used the Edit > Define Pattern and saved the pattern to create the background. For the cavies I did a refined selection of each of only their front halves. Used the free transform to get the area they were to connect to be the same size. Used the Soft Light to blend them. 

Tony – Balloon layer is background. Selected two images and extracted singer. Free Transformed singer to fit the balloon size and rotated as needed. Used Soft Light to blend singers into the balloons and reduced the opacity and fill. Added text to the two balloons and again reduced the opacity and fill.

Photographic Illustration Research / Presentation

Link to the PowerPoint presented in class http://www.slideshare.net/paullivo44/photographic-illustration-rsch


Research current and recent photographic illustration practitioners and styles and identify several (at least 3) which appeal to you personally, or you feel would be useful from a commercial point of view.

I guess I have to start with some sort of definition of what a photographic illustration is.

"The terms illustration photography and photographic illustration, however, suggest a more limited meaning [than the dictionary definition of illustration] – namely, that photographs in this category are more than faithful images of objects. In addition to representing objects, such photographs are expected to communicate something less tangible to the views, such as a concept or a mood." ("Illustration Photography" by George Cochran in Focal Encyclopedia of Photography: Digital Imaging, Theory and Applications, History, and Science, pg. 324, 4th Edn. (2007), Focal Press)

"Within the industry of photojournalism, a controversial photo presentation style – “photo illustration” – has been debated for its effect on the credibility of the industry since its formal introduction to the news business in 1976 when the term “photographic illustration” first appeared in a photojournalism text book (Edom, 1976) and also, in the same year, was added to the Picture of Year Competition as a new category (Brill, 1993)." These comments are illustrated in relation to some new coverage that included faked images such as, "cover photo of Martha Stewart posing for the magazine before she was released from prison, but the photo turned out to be her face added onto a model’s body"; "front-page composite photo of President Clinton and Cuban leader Fidel Castro about to shake hands. The Clinton and Castro photos were taken separately at different times and locations but digitally pasted together"; and "photo showing a teenage schoolgirl snorting drugs at a school locker to go with a teenage drug problem story. The whole scene involving the girl was staged". (Photo Illustration in U.S. Newsmagazines during the Past Three Decades, PhD dissertation by Yuk-Kwong Edmund Lo, (2008) Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University, http://etd.ohiolink.edu/send-pdf.cgi/Lo%20YukKwong%20Edmund.pdf?ohiou1215544026, viewed 5 Aug 2012.)

"Photo illustrations differ from news photos in content, creation, and purpose. They are staged or produced, and are manufactured situations. They often are set up in a studio and are used for fashion, food, and product promotion. When an existing photograph is altered for artistic purposes, such as by adding or deleting content, it also is considered a photo illustration. Environmental portraits shot on location are not considered photo illustrations." (Photo Guidelines, University of Wisconsin, http://universityrelations.wisc.edu/policies/photo-guidelines.php, viewed 5 Aug 2012.)

One of the first things I must say is that I'm not a big user of Photoshop nor of illustrative techniques. I'm not unaware of the techniques having several books and magazines relating to illustrative techniques I've not taken the time to learn about them and tend to stick primarily with Lightroom for my image enhancement.

All three of these practitioners have several things in common. They are all professionals in their field; they are creative; they get lots of publicity via social networking and email subscriptions to them; they provide lots of free tip, tricks and tutorials showing the breadth of their knowledge; and by having built up a name for themselves are able to sell video, disks, books, ebooks and their services.

The first photographic illustration practitioner I'd like to discuss is Matt Kloskowski. Matt is the Education and curriculum Developer for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), author of books, videos and instructor of seminars and classes on Photoshop. His latest book Photoshop Compositing Secrets: Unlocking the Key to Perfect selections & Amazing Photoshop Effects for Totally Realistic Composites (2012) 380 pgs.

I've always found Matt's articles and videos to be very informative, clear and concise. He is true to that teaching style in the book. He starts out with "10 things you need to know about compositing" which include, starting with a background or the subject; using stock photos; selection in photoshop; lighting is everything; secret weapons - plug-ins; and more.  From there he teaches the reader by building on techniques and sharing tips of how to get the best out of the techniques and the rational behind them.

As far as style of illustration is concerned Matt, I would say,  is mostly involved, in this book at least, with portraiture that includes individuals or several groups of individuals being composited into a single image. He takes as much care to prep the backgrounds as he does with the individuals. Some of the chapter headings include Creating Motion; Professional Office; Family/Group Portrait; Live Concert; Movie Poster; Adding Illustrations; and Advanced commercial Compositing. There are downloadable image so the reader can practice the techniques.

The second practitioner is Scott Kelby. Scott is a photographer, designer, author and President of the NAPP and many other credentials relating to Photoshop. The aspect of his work I want to look at is found in his book Professional Portrait Retouching Techniques for Photographers using Photoshop (2011) 351 pgs.

Like Kloskowski the Kelby book is clear concise with easy to follow step-by-step instruction, illustrations and photographs. The topic of this book although portraits it deals with retouching of the individual subject rather than compositing several different images. The broad topics covered are Retouching Eyes, retouching skin; Reshaping Facial Features; Retouching Hair; Retouching the Lips and Mouth; Slimming and Trimming; and his retouching Checklist  with his 5/10/30 minute Retouch processes.The checklist has 60 points in 5 areas face, skin, mouth & lips, hair and body. His down to earth comment about the checklist, "...  hopefully you're not going to do all 60 things to any single photo (or you have an entirely different problem. Well, your subject does) ..." There are downloadable image so the reader can practice the techniques.

Alex Koloskov's work keeps showing up on various photographic related Facebook pages and I've been following him for a year or more on both his sites. Koloskov http://www.koloskov.com which is his commercial website for product, jewellery, food and liquid photography. The Photigy website http://www.photigy.com is the real fun stuff where he provides tutorials and behind the scenes look at his sometimes unbelievable work.  His work with liquids is what fascinates me the most. His video on the making of the Google logo using paint is great. http://tinyurl.com/7qu89th the video is 2:53 min. The creativity of people never ceases to amaze me.

Tutorial for Creating a Live Concert using Photoshop Composting. Source Photoshop Compositing Secrets: Unlocking the Key to Perfect Selections & Amazing Photoshop Effects Totally Realistic Composites, by Matt Kloskowski (2012) ISBN 978-0-321-80823-3, Published by Peachpit Press.